polywater (idea)

Polywater , or anomalous water was a polymerised form of normal water, where the hydrogen bonds between watermolecules line up to create a polymer. Supposedly discovered in 1966 by Russian scientist N.N.Fedayakin, it was found by heating water and letting it condense in quartzcapillary tubes. Unfortunately this method did not create enough to be used in conventional testing, but preliminary research indicated that it was much more viscous than water, and had a much higher boiling point. When news of this discovery reached the western world huge numbers of scientists attempted to isolate a sample of polywater, and published papers about its properties. Some even warned that if released it could crystallise the world's oceans into this new form, wiping out life on Earth, similar to ice-9 in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat's Cradle. However, as experiments continued those samples of polywater that were analysed were shown to contain a great variety of contaminants such as silicon and phospholipids. Eventually polywater was found to be merely particles suspended in ordinary water, and the polywater "discovery"was put down to poor experimental method.